Various references, including patents, patent applications, accession numbers, technical articles, and scholarly articles are cited throughout the specification. Each reference is incorporated by reference herein, in its entirety and for all purposes.
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a large superfamily of cell surface receptors that are characterized by 7 helical transmembrane domains, together with N-terminal extracellular and C-terminal intracellular domains (Cherezov V, et al., Science 318: 1258-1265 (2007)). GPCRs are expressed in a variety of cell types, and participate in transducing extracellular signals across the cellular membrane and into the cellular interior (Kobilka R, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1768: 794-807 (2007)). So important is the role that GPCRs play in biology that in 2012, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two scientists who identified how GPCRs function (Clark R, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110: 5274-5275 (2013)).
GPR156 (G protein-coupled receptor 156), is a human gene which encodes a GPCR belonging to metabotropic glutamate receptor subfamily (Calver A, et al., Brain Res. Mol. Brain Res. 110: 305-307 (2003)). Other names that have been used to reference GPR156 in the literature are GABABL (GABAB-like) and PGR28 (Vassilatis D, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100: 4903-4908 (2003)). In mice, GPR156 is referred to as Gpr156 or Gababl. Identifying new GPR156 variants would be helpful in the continued study of the role of GPR156 in human physiology and its potential role in diseases. The present disclosure provides novel GPR156 variants that will aid in understanding the biology of GPR156, and will facilitate the identification of potentially therapeutic agents that modulate GPR156 and/or its cellular biological pathway.